Power from victimhood
❝❝If you teach people to only take power from their victimhood, all you're really doing is teaching them to stay victims.❞❞
“But in the well-intentioned battle against sexual assault, facts become irrelevant, and truth never seems to matter.”
Trauma Informed Investigations Stole My Son’s Future
““If you’d have asked me before my son was accused of sexual misconduct, I would have said that trauma-informed investigations were a good idea. Living through the '90s as a female college student, then as a woman motivated to be successful in a male-dominated field, sexual harassment, inequality, and forcible rape happened. It still happens today. Then so many victims were afraid to come forward as they are now. However, in our rush for justice, we are bearing witness to the creation of a new class of victim on college campuses and in the criminal justice system. The innocent.
These new victims aren’t given the presumption of innocence. They aren’t entitled to know the accusation against them. Evidence is withheld from them and their lawyers. Police officers ask deceptively leading questions, and school investigators are both judge and jury making life-altering sanction decisions based on the presumption that a ‘victim’ never lies. ””
— A. Pebble
NeoNote — Unjustified privilege
❝❝You're making unjustified assumptions.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Is the climate crisis a thing? To some (like most pagans), yes. To others like (not conservative) me, no. It's an article of faith, not far removed from monotheism or forgiveness of sin. The issue is that because of the alarmism, those who believe in the climate crisis don't tolerate dissent because of the "urgency" of the problem.
At their best, American Christian conservatives are extremely community minded. A child lost in the woods? They are there looking. Death in the family? Somebody is bringing meals by. The problem is who they identify as being part of the community. Something that is not helped by some like pagans setting themselves outside the acknowledged community.
Most claims of conservative racism are because the conservatives involved didn't see any reason to grant special privilege when people already had rights recognized by law. It doesn't help when conservatives are routinely accused of white supremacy simply for being the wrong skin color regardless of their words and actions. There is a vast difference between not supporting the claims of groups like BLM and being racist. Because conservatives (and libertarians too) see rights as individual and not collective, the idea of identity politics is repugnant. You have rights because you are human, not because you are Hispanic, female, wore a pink hat in a march, or consider yourself non-binary.
What's more, the idea that only "whites" can be racist because of something that was done in their great-great-great grandparents time just doesn't fly. Racism comes in all colors. I've seen casual racism my entire life. I've also seen most people reach out for no other reason than someone else needed help.
Finally, judging people by label is a mistake. The label has no inherent vice or virtue. It's the individual who makes the label mean something through their words and actions, not the other way around. Power from victimhood depends on the pity of others and will make you less than you are.
Here are some of the demands for privilege I've seen during my life.
The idea that one skin color and one skin color alone can decide what is and is not racism. I still know people who try to convince me that a "black" minister saying "Hymietown" is not racist.
The idea that inner-city poverty is a more important than reservation poverty.
The idea that a person whose family came from Nigeria two generations ago has a claim on the success of a person whose family came from China five generations ago.
The idea that skin color should trump evidence in a crime.
And as long as we keep qualifying the legal definition of who is and is not allowed to marry, that problem will not go away. Previously I've pointed out in discussions on this site that somehow in the call for marriage equality poly marriage wasn't even a consideration. That selectivity is a consequence of defining rights by group instead of individual.
Pardon, but the bit about how some threw poly people under the bus should be stressed. Because the "struggle" wasn't about marriage in whatever form it could take between consenting adults, it was about "gay marriage."
It wasn't about rights. It was about privilege for some taken at the expense of others.
No, there wasn't a "polyamorous community" fighting to be recognized. I had some LGBT activists tell me emphatically that poly people didn't deserve marriage because they hadn't fought for it.
That is where my issue is. I'm perfectly willing to fight for equal rights. But I hear demands for "black" rights, Hispanic rights, women's rights, gay rights, and for all I know rights for people with ingrown toenails. Not to mention Christian rights, pagan rights, Muslim rights, atheist rights, and pastafarian rights. That doesn't even count the constant efforts of government to define government powers as rights (police rights, Congress has the right…). It seems that everyone wants to carve out their own piece but no one is willing to help carve out a piece for any group but theirs. Especially if they don't agree with other groups.
It's not about rights. It's about privilege for some taken at the expense of others.
Oh, and by the way, "white" cis males are guilty for all the troubles in the world. Especially when they don't abase themselves to the demands of self-identified victims-of-the-week. No matter what they personally have done or said, "white" cis males are undeniably and collectively guilty. Or so I am told. Again and again and again.
How that is not racist is beyond me.
Meanwhile "people of color" tell me that they are fighting for the rights of the victimized. And they are. But not if those victims live almost invisibly and don't advance certain causes. And definitely not if those victims have different politics. If there is an oil pipeline that gets TV coverage, the "champions" are all over it. But every day poverty on Amerindian reservations, well, that just isn't important enough.
So tell me, when is it reasonable when some victims are deliberately overlooked? Maybe it's not about rights. Maybe it's about privilege.
Human rights are the only ones worth fighting for. Maybe we should worry about the rights we share instead of a place in the pecking order. It's not a right unless the other has it too.
“I still wouldn't characterize them as privileges.”
I know. That's what's so frustrating. Human rights get moved to the back seat, then to the bicycle with a flat tire thirteen rows back.❞❞
Choosing the most oppressed
Saturday - 01Dec2018 Filed in: Politics&Morality & Modern Life
❝❝Progressive politics revolves around choosing the most oppressed so that everyone else can be shamed into granting extra privileges to the designated victims.❞❞
NeoNote — "Race," IQ, and savagery
❝❝That is a phenomenally inaccurate and simplistic view.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
"Run by blacks…"
They are run by Democrats who have spent the last 50+ years telling minority groups that they are victims and don't have to be responsible.
Gods, the absolute last last thing you should do is blame skin color.
Do you want to make things worse?
Of course you're blaming skin color.
Those "heritable characteristics" vanish when you start adjusting for quality of education, early childhood environment, and family support.
Next time read the disclaimers andqualitificationsqualifications.
Yes, yes they do. Check the studies again. Better yet, follow it to the inevitable conclusion. If the "heritable characteristics" exist and are not modified by environmental factors, then by your logic "blacks" are inherently inferior.
Think about that very carefully.
The fact that you are relying on IQ tells me quite a bit.
The IQ tests are culturally biased. What's more, studies from the late 1970s forward have shown that the tests are sub-culturally biased. Those scores are significantly linked to quality of education, early childhood environment, and family support.
Yes, those things I mentioned earlier.
What's more, there's evidence of an inner-city sub-culture that is adamantly against doing well in school or on tests.
Look, here's the problem.
You're defining people by skin color, no matter what their individual accomplishments.
Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Daniel Hale Williams , Booker T. Washington, James West, John J. Jasper, Daniel "Chappie" James Jr., Thomas Sowell, Huey P. Newton, Carter G. Woodson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, those are just some of the remarkable American men I remember off the top of my head.
Those averages only matter if you've allowed for all other factors.
For example, how manysub-Sararansub-Saharan nations have a free market based economy? How many recognize the rights of the individual?
I already told you a third theory. There are significant cultural and environmental differences. What's more, put any skin color in unfavorable circumstances and watch how fast the "average" drops.
Unless a government recognizes & defends individual rights, corruption follows as surely as night follows day.
Those white South Africans you mention had special privilege and exploited people because they had the power to do so. When things changed, there was no living memory of anything except special privileges. The corruption stayed and the exploited targets changed.
A version of the same problem is happening in those Democrat controlled cities that you incorrectly insist on labeling "black run." Recognized rights have long given way to special privilege, and no one remembers anything else.
I didn't say anything about it not being their fault. I specifically said Democrats "have spent the last 50+ years telling minority groups that they are victims and don't have to be responsible."
Not so long ago, the Republican idea of race relations was to get out of the way and tell people to take responsibility. That's no longer the case.
I don't care about blame. I just care about fixing the problem. And you are making things worse.
You're making the Democrat case for them. You're saying that "blacks" will fail if left to themselves.
You mean other than the examples I gave you?
If you are interested in statistics, try the upward mobility of "blacks" between 1900 and 1960, before government interfered. The welfare statistics and the rise of single mother families are particularly telling. These have been well documented.
On the whole, two parent households do better over time. When the immediate cost of having children is reduced by government intervention, then a single parent household is less likely to move up the economic ladder.
I told you some of what was necessary for a society's success. Recognition and protection of individual rights. A free market economy. Those things are rare.
Those things are also not dependent on skin color.
I don't recognize "black" societies, I recognize human societies. Almost every single time when someone talks about "black" societies or "black"nations or "black" cities, it's about racism.
There's one race and it's human.
I said no such thing.
I talked about political systems designed to exploit victimhood and grant privilege.
That has almost nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with denying rights.
People designed those systems. Generations of people over centuries, trading, interacting, arguing, fighting, failing, and trying again. It wasn't because of one skin color even if you could define "white."
Because I said that people designed the systems, for good or ill?
Because I pointed out that it took generations?
Because I pointed out that you can't define "white" anymore than you can define "black?"
You lost this one the second you used skin color as a substitute for individual merit.
You haven't managed to identify any significant differences that aren't environmental in nature.
Instead, you keep focusing on skin color, a poor indicator under the best of circumstances.
There are hundreds of other factors, starting with how many parents the child has and if the child is raised in a loving environment. That doesn't even include the social factors I've already touched on.
As long as you focus on skin color, you're just perpetuating the problems.
The only way the question is reduced to a binary condition is by focusing on insignificant measurements such as skin color.
We've already established that IQ is culturally biased. There are also strong indications that IQ is sub-culturally biased as well. That means that part of what IQ measures is cultural conformity.
That's assuming that IQ is a relevant measure of intelligence to begin with. There are theories that one measurement of intelligence isn't nearly enough.
Like it or not, you have to allow for environmental and cultural factors in IQ scores.
Me and about two thirds of the researchers studying the possibility.
I suggest you do a web search for IQ cultural bias.
First, it's not the "warrior gene." A variant is popularly (and inaccurately) referred to as the "warrior gene." Technically the variant produces lessMAMOMAOA .
Second, the evidences seems to show that the people with a low level ofMAMOMAOA show higher levels of aggression when faced with social stressors such as ostracism, exclusion, or overwhelming loss.
You know, environmental factors.
ETA: Sorry about that, spell check fixed something I didn't want fixed.
With environmental factors, yes.
Would you like a list of genetic variations that are activated by environmental stressors?
I don't lie.
You keep stressing differences that derive from environmental factors.
Yet you keep blaming skin color.
Remember when I mentioned "family support?" Have you accounted for the incredible cultural pressure to succeed at schools and testing?
Yep, Obama was all about skin color. And his solutions worked out just so well for everyone, right?
There's a line I've been throwing around for a couple years now.❝There were so many patting themselves on the back and proud that a black man had been elected President that no one bothered to ask if a good man had been elected President.❞
The politics are a much bigger part of the problem than the skin color.
It's the politics I blame.
And there's your problem.
You think it's about America.
It's about freedom.
Who said anything about pretending it's not there?
I'm disputing why it is there.
Actually I did. I talked briefly about incentivizing single parenthood and telling minorities that they are perpetual victims and how they don't have to take responsibility.
No, it wasn't the same environment.
I specified "telling minorities."
Politics are bad enough, but the politics are of victimhood are just despicable.
Because they don't have the same incentives.
Do you have any idea how much has been written and spoken about this over the last sixty years?
You might start with Goldwater's objections to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
I believe they are indoctrinated to believe that they could only be victims no matter what.
Talked with more than a few. Slept with a couple.
I'm a bilagáana born on the res. I grew up next to the Diné, the Hopi, and the Havasupai. Spent a lot of time in Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, and Albuquerque.
Still want to lecture me on the "races?"
Gods, you really are so ignorant that you can't be bothered to do a web search.
Roughly translated, bilagáana means "white man." There's more to it than that, especially for one born on the reservation. I'm what happens when Louisiana farming stock takes root in the Four Corners region.
Check again.
I never denied cultural differences, I just pointed out that they alone don't determine IQ or aggression.
I don't think I've done it in this thread, but I have pointed out that there is one race and it's human.
"Peoples" is a completely different concept and doesn't usually rest on minor genetic differences. The term is slightly more accurate than tribes.
Go back and reread what I wrote on this thread. I started by pointing out that what was being passed off as racial and genetic differences were actually due to environmental and cultural factors.
Ah, someone is making the right points.
First, IQ is not an objective measurement. One of my favorite examples is the Diné, their culture doesn't recognize time and distance as linear. With the possibility of multiple intelligences, things get more complicated. Gross motor coordination doesn't translate to spatial mathematical. Yes, I know the theory has problems like leaving out fine motor control, but this isn't the place.
We've not defined intelligence very well. There's a difference between following a recipe and walking in a kitchen just to whip up amazing food. IQ tests look for proven solutions, not for that creative spark. Sometimes that mostly works, sometimes not.
One set of parents can produce a musical genius, a good accountant, and a total slacker. It's impossible to say if a specific genetic line might produce. We know from domesticated animals that some traits will probably breed true, but we have to allow for environment and chance. We can't say that this family always produces good Rotarians and never any gamers. We can't say that every puppy from that Labrador will be good with kids. If you expand it to a group, the uncertainty grows too.
Interesting. You get to keep your preconceptions but I have to give mine up.
Okay, let's go back to basics. Part of science is eliminating variables.
The people we're comparing, are they on the same economic level? Did they have the same number of parents? Did they attend the same or comparable schools? Are they married? Do they have the same number of kids? Is their debt level the same? Is their education level the same? Do they live in the same or comparable neighborhoods?
We know that every single one of these environmental factors can influence someone's mental abilities, their tastes, their chosen activities, and their obligations.
And these are just the big ones.
Otherwise you're comparing apples from last year to next year's bananas. There's no way to establish a baseline.
There's no real comparison until you can account for most of the major variables.
I'm telling you (again) that until you can account for environmental differences, your measurements are useless.
There's a difference between a Walmart special and a finely made bookshelf. You can't just say that the one that is forty-one inches wide is better than the thirty-five inch one. You don't have enough information to judge.
It's a trick question.
It presupposes that there aren't any other variables that matter.
At the very least, acknowledge that the quality of schools makes a difference.Mona Lisa Vito: It's a bullshit question.
D.A. Jim Trotter: Does that mean that you can't answer it?
Mona Lisa Vito: It's a bullshit question, it's impossible to answer.
D.A. Jim Trotter: Impossible because you don't know the answer!
Mona Lisa Vito: Nobody could answer that question!
D.A. Jim Trotter: Your Honor, I move to disqualify Ms. Vito as a "expert witness"!
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Can you answer the question?
Mona Lisa Vito: No, it is a trick question!
— My Cousin Vinny
From my second response to you on this thread, I've pointed out again and again that you can not eliminate cultural and environmental factors.
The differences that you chose to highlight directly resulted in part from the culture and environment.
These are facts that we know and can easily be verified through a web search.
Children from single parent households tend to do worse at school and hold lower paying jobs.
Children from abusive households tend to do worse at school and hold lower paying jobs.
Single parent households tend to stay at lower income levels.
Some schools fail so much that most of their students can't read, write, or do basic math.
If children don't have enough to eat, they don't do well in school.
If people don't have shelter, they tend to have more health problems.
How much did environment and culture play a part? There is no way to know unless you can eliminate variables.
There's no comparison unless you can account for most of the major variables. This is true in science. This is true in statistics. This is true in life.
Your question makes no sense because there can be no comparison.
But you haven't presented evidence.
You've gone out of your way to dismiss the very idea that the culture and environment can have any possible influence on the differences you chose to highlight.
All you've done is lay out a premise that presupposes that no other factors can change what you choose to measure.
It's not science. It's not statistics. It's not even logically verifiable.
It's just prejudice.
You don't have evidence. You have observation, but you haven't shown cause or correlation because you have not allowed for environmental and cultural factors.
It's not even a matter of "interpretation." You've deliberately chosen one measurement and claimed that it defines the whole discussion. Can you say selection bias?
You can put tomato seeds in a salt shaker for nine months. That doesn't mean you'll be harvesting.
But I don't blame skin color at all. That's when I talk about this at all. Most people don't want to deal with uncomfortable truths.
I talk about politics, history, and the lies of government. Also basic economics and self-ownership.
Self-ownership and responsibility are a big part of what I write and talk about.
I also talk about strategy that exploits the politics of victimhood. I point out that the people who don't accept those lies from politicos and technocrats do better over time. Usually better than their parents. Which used to be a measurement of success in this nation.
A significant number of politicos (easily more than half) use the message that people are victims and their friend, the government, can help.
I tell people that government is not your friend, no matter how much the politicos say that it is.
That's not making excuses. That's showing that most politicos want problems they can stage manage. The politicos can't do that by solving problems.
It's a loaded question.
The premise is insufficient.
Neighbor, you're telling me that I am dealing in absolutes when I just listed seven major variables that we know affect intelligence and ability. These variables change everybody no matter what their skin color, nationality, sex, or ice cream preference.
I can stop you with nothing more than a few words.
Think about it. You're taking offense at what I write on a website when all I am really saying is "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…"
You would deny that?
I'm not defending today's mess.
I've written against it.
But (and this is the important bit), you're still defining people by skin color instead of what they are individually.
There's a phrase about "content of their character" that comes to mind.
I know, you keep defining people by skin color.
Tell me, what nationality are "blacks?"
If a "Chinese" has been granted American citizenship, when does he stop being "Chinese?" Three seconds after? Three generations? When he changes his name to Jones?
If Jesus Fernandez was born in Michigan and barely speaks Spanish, is he "Mexican?"
Or American?
I didn't say anything about stopping the Left with words.
I said I could stop you.
And I have.
Think you so?
Look at what's happened.
I've held my own against you and your "friend." Along the way, we've discussed history, psychology, morality, biology, and ethics. We've done it in real time for a few hours, and right now you are focused on taking me down, not in proving that "blacks" are inferior.
And all you can do is tell me that I don't deserve my citizenship.
You got stopped.
"The fact that blacks are not us."
Pretty sure my neighbors would disagree. Pretty sure your neighbors would too.
"Wait until your neighbors are Hindus, Muslims, Mexicans, or Asians."
Um, they are.
I could ask my across-the-street neighbor, but I'm pretty sure she's happy with her husband. I don't know their kids that well.
Because they are us.
The commonalities outweigh the differences.
These barriers, these labels that people like you keep using, they separate us. The labels keep us apart.❝Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.❞
— Sojourner Truth
The Hopi are surrounded by all sides by the Diné. Can you tell me the genetic differences between the Hopi and the Diné? Good luck, because they've been intermarrying for a long time.
So what are their national characteristics?
As I said, I'm an American. I'm a mix. Part of my ancestry is Irish, part of it is English, part of it is Creole, part of it is German, part of it is Russian, and there's probably stuff on both sides of the bed that isn't officially acknowledged.
What are my national genetic characteristics?
I'm pretty sure I could father a child with any fertile human female if we tried hard enough. That's sort of how the species works.
And that's the important thing. We're one species, one "race." Throw us together and those distinctions fade. We get down and funky. We rut. We mix our genes.
It doesn't stop there. Ideas mix too. We argue with each other. We try to one up each other. We try. We look at what the other guy is doing. We borrow what works and tweak it a bit.
Synchronicity and syncretism happen, no matter how much you want "purity."
I'm not trying to change the labels.
I'm pointing out the truths.
Those labels are controlling your life."Truth and lies don't miscegenate."
Miscegenation has nothing to do with truth and lies and everything to do with sex and children.
Truth is subject to change. There was a time when people thought the speed of light was infinite. Now we know it's about 186,000 miles per second. In a vacuum. Put it through an atmosphere or water and it's something else.
We're human. That humanity matters more than any "racial" difference. It's why there are children of "mixed race." As time and people go on, the differences fade.
Until we meet a new population and it starts all over again.
I don't lie. I serve veritas.❞❞
NeoNote — What makes a hate crime worse?
Saturday - 28Jul2018 Filed in: NeoNotes&Morality & Modern Life
❝❝For years, I've asked the question what makes a "hate crime" worse than another crime for the same offense. I've never gotten a straight answer.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Well, here it is. "Hate crimes" are absolutely justified if it's for the correct reason. Thou shalt not dissent from the approved narrative. Victims are victims unless they strike out against the Man as declared by progressive experts. And collective victimhood counts, especially if it acts against collective oppression. The individual MUST be subservient to the label, all in the name of The Greater Good and to Protect the Children.
So now we know. If it offends progressives, anything is justified so feelings can be protected and any questionable behavior can be ruthlessly suppressed.
Yep, definitely about the hate there.❞❞
Modest talents so richly rewarded
Monday - 16Jul2018 Filed in: Quotes & Thinkums&Politics
We let it happen
Saturday - 25Nov2017 Filed in: Quotes & Thinkums&Morality & Modern Life